Author: Devavrat Singh

According to reports, the Binance Crypto exchange has “aided the US law enforcement” in seizing $4.4 million worth of crypto assets linked to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) cybercrime orgs. The North Korean government, officially known as DPRK employs malicious cyber activity to collect intelligence, conduct attacks and generate revenue. Binance, following “lawfully served warrants” toiled to pin down these accounts and tie up the funds. On May 25th, through a series of tweets Binance claimed that with the help of its Investigations team, it abetted the US law enforcement to basket the “illicit revenue generation activities” of four…

According to reports, Pakistan’s Minister of State for Finance and Revenue commented that due to the conditions set by the global money-laundering watchdog, legalizing crypto is not possible for the country. Meeting the terms and conditions is a must to avoid being placed on the watchdog’s enhanced monitoring list. Antithetical to the statement by Pakistan’s finance minister, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) shed light on the fact that it does not mandate countries to impose a blanket ban on virtual assets and virtual asset service providers. In a statement, the FATF highlighted that such a condition had not been…

In response to a recent political scandal revolving around Kim Nam-kuk, a former member of the South Korean Democratic Party, a legalization bill is being imposed that aims to mandate South Korean officials to disclose possession of all digital assets, exceeding approximately $760 in value. The amendment to South Korea’s Public Service Ethics Act, approved by government officials, would now encompass virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies. The South Korean legislation required officials to report holdings that surpassed 1 million Korean won (around $760) for stocks, bonds, jewellery, gifted memberships, and other assets, but digital assets did not fall under this…

The consultation period for the initial set of global standard-setter’s comprehensive recommendations regarding the regulation of cryptocurrency will come to an end on July 31. On Tuesday, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) fanned out its policy recommendations for crypto and digital asset markets for public comments. According to a press release, there are a total of 18 policy recommendations that circumscribe various aspects including market abuse, conflict of interest, client asset protection, disclosure, and risks linked to crypto. The recommendations put forward, primarily aim to tackle the “wide-ranging concerns associated with safeguarding investors and maintaining integrity in the…

The Institutional investors faced yet another blow, with “poor sentiment” around Bitcoin, which resulted in the outflow of digital asset investment products for five simultaneous weeks. According to the latest data, BTC’s outflow volume totalled $32 million from May 15 to May 19, making it the fifth week of outflow. James Butterfill, the head of Coinshares shared that the “negative sentiment” was centred around the usage of Bitcoin, which seems to be a recurring phenomenon in the trends of recent incidents that took place during the past five weeks. Five weeks of continuous downfall resulted in $232 million worth of…

Hotbit, one of the fastest-growing crypto exchanges, commented that centralized exchanges are becoming progressively burdensome and emphasized that they are unlikely to align with long-term trends. Hotbit declared to cease all of its operations effective May 22. The exchange has asked its users to withdraw their funds latest by June 21, 4:00 AM UTC. In an announcement, the exchange stated that its operating conditions have worsened, following an investigation of a former team member in August 2022. According to the exchange, the results of this investigation led to the shutting down of services provided by Hotbit for several weeks. Moreover,…

The Tornado Cash Token (TORN) has seen a jump of 10% after the submission of a manifesto by a wallet address that is linked to the current attack on the decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) governance, which in turn seeks to reverse the mala fide changes. Tornadosaurus-Hex, a user of the Tornado Cash Community forum wrote, “The attacker posted a new proposal to restore the state of governance.” He further added that there was a “pretty good chance” of the attacker executing it. Moreover, he added that the attacker is trying to retrogress the TORN tokens that provides them with a…

The Texas proof-of-reserve bill passed a vote in the state senate on May 15 and now awaits only the governor’s signature. The potential law would mandate all cryptocurrency exchanges to maintain reserves “sufficient to fulfil all customer obligations”. The bill targets digital asset providers, either with $10 million in customer funds or more than 500 customers, in particular. It requires the exchanges to submit a report to the Texas Banking Department within 90 days following each fiscal year’s conclusion as proof of customer assets, which can be validated by an auditor. The report should also contain any kind of outstanding…

Australia’s oldest bank Westpac, made an announcement recently stating it would impose a ban on all transactions related to Binance, a well-known cryptocurrency exchange. This decision is backed by Westpac’s commitment to safeguard investors and protect its customers from potential scams and fraudulent activities, as clearly stated in their official press release. Highlighting the necessity of protective measures, Scott Collary, Westpac’s group executive of customer services and technology, emphasized the importance of safeguarding customers’ interests. He commented that the legitimate presence and feasibility of digital exchanges in the financial landscape have surged the use of digital currencies. This surge in…

Binance Australia, the world’s largest crypto exchange, is blaming third-party service providers for issues wherein some of their customers were unable to deposit or withdraw money after the service providers reportedly cut off their services. The exchange on Thursday said that it would no longer clear the way for Australian Dollar bank transfers using PayID and is desperately trying to figure out a viable alternative to prevent its customers from facing the issue caused by cutting off services provided by third parties. Despite the challenges faced by crypto exchanges in maintaining fiat on-ramps, Binance assures that its P2P marketplace remains…

The South Korean government is propelling towards enforcing stricter laws regarding digital assets. This step comes forth following a ghastly murder crime wherein a woman was abducted and killed in South Korea over a disagreement involving Digital assets. According to the reports, a woman was abducted on March 29 and murdered later. It is firmly believed that the incident involved disagreements over crypto-related losses which in turn led to the abduction as well as murder of the woman. Taking into account the recent murder case, South Korean lawmakers are facing serious urgency regarding the expedition of the nation’s first standalone…

The Union government and the central bank of India faced a proposal to revive the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a wildly popular payment interface, by the crypto industry. India’s crypto market which includes the newly formulated crypto policy advocacy group, Bharat Web Association, has already put in two proposals and a third one is in the pipeline. It is viewed as the first-ever push by India’s crypto stakeholders, to search for policy changes that govern the fast-paced industry. Although the movement started as an uncoordinated one, it gained momentum and added gravitas to an industry, which faced a series of…

The transactional volume of dogecoin experienced a flying rise as compared to Litecoin and Bitcoin earlier this week. The introduction of the DRC-20 token allowed feasible transactions across the Dogecoin blockchain which resulted in a blast off of transactions across the network. The daily transactional volume of Dogecoin experienced a tenfold rise from what was seen as the daily average earlier this week. Dogecoin’s transaction volume is set to reach a lifetime peak following the establishment of a tool that enables the issuance of tokens on the Dogecoin blockchain. Data across the web showed that the network saw more than…

The Securities and Exchange Commission is under fire due to a brief filed by the US Chamber of Commerce in regard to its actions against the crypto companies. The Chamber of Commerce which represents some of the world’s largest business federations and around 3000 countrywide businesses, has a significant impact on all crypto-related platforms. It has expressed its disappointment in the SEC vs Coinbase case, criticizing SEC in the process. The chamber has repeatedly expressed its role in putting forth and protecting its members’ interests before Congress, federal courts and even the executives. It starts off by highlighting the lack…

In what can be viewed as a great setback for the US crypto market, there has been a substantial dip caused due to the US government allegedly selling 9,800 Bitcoins (BTC), which was approximately worth $277 million, according to certain reports. The Bitcoin in question was annexed by the US Government during the Silkroad case. The alleged humongous sale made by the US Government has snowballed into a bigger phenomenon with prices of Bitcoin dipping per minute. It is deemed one of the most significant sales of BTC made by the government. The downward spiral comes after a post-CPI report…

The capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Abu Dhabi is all set to experience one of the world’s first large-scale bitcoin mining operations in the Middle East with a complex developed by a joint venture between Zero Two and Marathon Digital Holdings. According to a statement released by the two companies involved, they will establish a joint venture entity called Abu Dhabi Global Markets JV Entity, responsible for creating and managing two digital asset mining locations. These locations will have a total capacity of 250 megawatts. One of the mining locations with a capacity of 200 megawatts will be…

Taking a significant first step towards legally introducing crypto, Hong Kong is all set to permit its crypto exchanges to offer their services to the citizens from June 1st after establishing a licensing system. A statement made by a senior official signifies that Hong Kong has prepared itself and is ready to embrace the influx of virtual assets into its economy. The new licensing regime claims to empower the nation and revive it as a contemporary financial hub, after the brief lull due to COVID-19. Eddie Yue, the head of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has recently confirmed that…

Industry representatives have expressed skepticism concerning the legality and potential consequences of the United States securities regulator’s plan to broaden custody regulations. In light of the recently filed letters, it is evident that at least two supporters of the crypto industry have opposed the United States securities regulator’s proposal to build up regulations surrounding crypto custody. The Blockchain Industry, a crypto industry advocacy group, gave in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on May 8th which was the deadline for commentary on the proposal. The letter criticized the SEC’s proposition to alter its custody regulations. A similar…

Estonia recently made radical modifications to its Terrorist Financing Prevention and Anti-Money Laundering laws in March, with nearly 400 Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPS) shutting down either voluntarily or being coerced to shut down following the revocation of their authorization. The amendments came in the form of expansion of the predefined purview of VASPS, firms to necessarily have legitimate links to the nation, a hike in the licensing fees and capital and mandatory requirement of reporting. This was also accompanied by the introduction of the Financial Action Task Force Travel Rule. The vast amendments drew sharp reactions in the form…

Europe’s Data Act has forced the blockchain industry in Europe to take final steps to prevent the law from destroying the smart contracts that support decentralized protocols. The Data Act which is set to be concluded by the end of June is currently being discussed and aims to control the data that is being shared between smart devices within the Internet-of-Things networks. The decentralized finance sector frets that the law’s article about regulating smart contracts does not provide enough information on what it will cover. The European Data Act was formally proposed on 23 February 2022 with an aim to…

While other nations are at odds with the crypto world and are cautious of every move they make in furtherance of the introduction of crypto trading and its usage in their national economy, Hong Kong is going all in with all guns blazing to provide its citizens with access to crypto trading and legalizing the same. Despite other nations being hesitant and advancing jurisdictions which are essentially restricting the cryptocurrency market to grow firmer in their respective states, Hong Kong’s FinTech Association Chair makes no two ways about the fact that Hong Kong is and remains a crypto-friendly country and…

On May 4th, the “national standards strategy” for “critical and emerging” technologies such as blockchain and digital ID was released by the United States President Joe Biden’s administration. As per the strategy, the U.S. would focus on standards development in eight areas, including “digital identity infrastructure and distributed ledger technologies” that have a growing impact on various significant economic sectors. Blockchain is often referred to as “distributed ledger.” As per a document from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that is currently being reviewed, digital identity is defined as “the distinct representation of a subject participating in an…

Kenya is possibly looking at taxing cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) transfers with lawmakers introducing a bill that would lead to a 3% tax on cryptocurrency and non-fungible token transfers, along with a 15% tax on all monetized online content which by default bring digital influencers in the loop. As expected, this policy decision was met with mixed opinions on the internet.  Kenya’s Finance Bill of 2023, introduced in the Parliament on May 4th, contained specific provisions with regards to the imposition of taxes on digital assets, which would be known as ‘Digital Asset Tax’, imposed on the income generated…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a member of one of the most famous U.S. political family and also the latest presidential candidate for the 2024 presidential elections. Kennedy has raised a number of concerns regarding the White House’s effort to initiate a 30% tax on crypto mining all across the US. To challenge president Joe Biden, Kennedy addressed a number of crypto issues in his newly announced campaign for the 2024 presidential elections. The candidate castigated the proposal made by Biden’s administration to excise tax which would ultimately lead to charging crypto mining operations up to 30 % of their…

The latest Hedge Fund rule formulated by the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) underwent a few last minute changes as it struck out the definition of ‘Digital Assets’, included in it’s 2022 proposal to rebuild mandatory disclosures for hedge funds, which would’ve been it’s first ever attempt to regulate the crypto market. However, it was found missing in the final set of rules approved by the Commissioners. A footnote explaining this decision read that ‘digital assets’ was something that was still being looked into and understood in it’s entirety and hence, it was found best not to include it…

The cryptocurrency market in India is likely to see a major impact due to the Government’s move to include virtual assets under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The Indian government issued a notice under the PMLA to include virtual assets such as Cryptocurrencies. This decision comes as the government seeks to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies in the country, which has seen a surge since their adoption in recent years. The notice was issued by the Ministry of Finance on monday stating “virtual assets” would now be considered as “property” under the PMLA. “PMLA” was passed in the…